Last week's show, featuring The Crimson Horror, Ken & Glen pondering the 50th Anniversary set photos seen below, IRON MAN 3 & it's fucked-up, shoddy international versions, and Glen sending Ken into a nervous breakdown by asserting that TRANSFORMERS isn't a particularly lofty concept when one really thinks about, can be found HERE!

NIGHTMARE IN SILVER (SPOILER FREE REVIEW)

Given that Neil Gaiman scripted this one, it’s not surprising that NISquickly emerges as one of S7’s more interesting and fanciful installments. It never soars to the heights of The Doctor’s Wife - that award-winning, Gaiman-scripted S6 adventure featuring a personification of the TARDIS - nor does it try to do so. Nightmare is very much content to do its own thing - and does it enjoyably, albeit unevenly.

Alas, for every ‘out of the park’ awesome moment herein - there are also sequences which feel like they’re falling short. Rushed...or not as well-realized as they might’ve been. Resulting in a mixed bag whose whole is generally agreeable, but also frustrating at times.

What do I mean by “Nightmare is very much content to do its own thing”? By this I mean: NIS simply does not care that it is a follow-up to Gaiman’s much-lauded S6 story - it doesn't try to match it or best it, nor should it necessarily. It’s a wholly different beast. At the end of the day, there’s a ‘kids in a sandbox’ mentality to this episode which is both a charm and a hindrance. At times, Nightmare literally feels like children role-playing on someone’s backyard playscape: “I’m the General!” ...“I’m the monster!”...and so forth. This is not an altogether inappropriate vibe for DOCTOR WHO, and it’s hard, if not impossible, not to find at least some affection for such wondrous imagination and enthusiasm. On the other hand, such playtimes are generally thin on substance and purpose - and I’d argue that these same conditions are present here. There’s a lot going on in Nightmare in SIlver...but the journey...save for a few moments involving the Doctor and Clara’s relationship...feels a bit hollow and fluffy. And not always logical. An example: there’s one Cyberman here who does something special - but what happens to that ability? And why don’t more Cybermen do the same thing? Perhaps I missed a detail, and if so...please feel free to address the matter in discussions below. But if I’m right? Well, there you go...

Between leaked on-set photos, BBC’s own publicity material, and general scuttlebutt, it’s no secret that we’re introduced to new Cybermen this time around (a previous model also appears). Their IRON MAN influence is more evident when they’re in motion than in the still photos which we’ve seen on The Net over the last few months. Derivation aside, the suits look great and move nicely - and are a step in the right direction in terms of Cyberman evolution.

In previous Docbacks I’ve mentioned my reservations about how the Cybermen have been approached by DOCTOR WHO in general - my line of thought being: with the immense resources the Cyberfolk have at their disposal, I find it difficult to believe that their technology, capabilities, and physique would not have evolved more substantially over time - it’s like they started out in “X” place way back in the Hartnell era, changed a bit here and there for a few years, then pretty-much stopped. That we’d have Cybermen who are more or less the same Cyberdudes we saw decades ago doesn’t make much sense to me when one considers how radically our real world has changed (technologically) over the past ten years alone. Smartphones, smart TVs, ultra-light/super-fast laptops, electric cars, the ability to access a breadth of human knowledge while sitting on a shitter in McDonald’s, staggering medical breakthroughs. The list goes on. But upgrades to Cybermen - a more advanced lot to begin with- feel incremental, if they exist at all? When their civilization is all making themselves and others better? Perhaps this might be a plot for some future DOCTOR WHO story: the Cybermen are dying-off due to their slowness in adapting and upgrading. Could make a startling parable for real world human foibles.

Come what may, these new suits are a good start - but they still represent more of an aesthetic upgrade than a conceptual growth. For my money, the Cybermen need more of both, still.

A tip of the hat to Warwick Davis (the LEPRECHAUN movies, the HARRY POTTER films, and Wicket the Ewok in the STAR WARS tales RETURN OF THE JEDI, THE EWOK ADVENTURE, and EWOKS: THE BATTLE FOR ENDOR), who brings an earnest and intriguing gravity to the proceedings.

I’m guessing there will quickly be calls to see his character again, whether it be in spin-offs, books, audios, or the series proper. I wouldn't mind as much. I wouldn't mind that at all...

1) a Docback should be about completely open and free discourse regarding all things WHO with, obviously, some variation on subject matter from time to time - the real world intervenes, discussions of other shows are inevitable, etc.)...

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And, above all...

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